A pro-Palestinian protest action briefly blocked all traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco Wednesday morning.

Starting at about 7:45 a.m. Protesters stopped cars and stretched banners across the roadway denouncing Israel’s bombing of Rafah in the Gaza Strip and demanding that the U.S. stop arming Israel.

Northbound and southbound traffic on the bridge was at a standstill as of 8 a.m.

  • SquirtleHermit@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    Well, technically it’s the definition of Genocide as outlined in the 1948 Genocide Convention, but I am willing to accept their definition.

    Regardless, you can’t think of (or even imagine) a war that wasn’t fought to completely eradicate, in whole or in part, of a group based on a nationality, ethnicity, race or religion?

    • nonailsleft@lemm.ee
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      10 months ago

      I sure can and that’s exactly the point: fighting to end a nation =/= genocide. Genocide = to eradicate a group of people

      • SquirtleHermit@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Sure, but Israel isn’t simply fighting to “end a nation” as in the nation state and it’s government. They are targeting civilians and refugees, and trying to forcibly end the group identity that is Palestine. Saying that all Palestinians should relocate, and targeting non-combatants indiscriminately, based on nationality, is genocide.

        Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such:

        (a) Killing members of the group;
        (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
        (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
        (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
        (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
        — Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article 2[7]
        

        Raz Segal, the program director of genocide studies at Stockton University, concretely says it is a “textbook case of genocide.” Segal believes that Israeli forces are completing three genocidal acts, including, “killing, causing serious bodily harm, and measures calculated to bring about the destruction of the group.” He points to the mass levels of destruction and total siege of basic necessities—like water, food, fuel, and medical supplies—as evidence.

        He says Israeli leaders expressed “explicit, clear, and direct statements of intent,” pointing to Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s statement during an Oct. 13 press conference. In his statement, Herzog said, “It’s an entire nation that is out there that’s responsible. It’s not true, this rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved. It’s absolutely not true,” Herzog said. “They could have risen up, they could have fought against that evil regime which took over Gaza in a coup d’etat.” (Herzog later said that he is not holding the civilians of Gaza responsible for keeping Hamas in political power, when asked to clarify by a journalist at the same press conference.) Segal says that this language conflates all Palestinians as “an enemy population,” which could help prove intent.

        Edit: Also, after rereading my comments, I can see how I didn’t make the through line clear, and thus why you assumed I simply meant that “wanting to remove a government = genocide”, which it obviously does not. My intent was that the quote from Netanyahu regarding the intent to end Palestine as a sovereign state would show that, combined with my aforementioned comments regarding the large scale destruction and intentional targeting and displacement of civilians, their goal is the complete destruction of the group based on Nationality. That Palestinians would not only have lost the right to self-governance, but would be all killed or scattered throughout the world, absorbed into other cultures, and thus cease to exist.

        • nonailsleft@lemm.ee
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          10 months ago

          Would you think there is a difference between harassing your neighbours to the point they move, and lining them up against the wall and executing them?

          Do you think the Israelis would be satisfied if all the Palestinians packed their bags and resettled somewhere else?